The Wild, Creative Edge of Grief: Gathering Your Wholeness with Ignatian Imagination

First Session
This session will invite participants to become present to instances in the Gospels where Jesus and others experience the touchstones of death, grief and loss, while incorporating Ignatian prayer practices that tap into the imagination. Participants will be encouraged to engage with the diverse emotions that accompany such experiences and honor them within a safe space of community and solidarity.

Second Session
This session will include multiple opportunities to experience this wild, creative edge in the diverse expressions of grief in our world. In our time together, we will briefly examine art, music, sacred texts and other modalities with the intention of noticing and exploring the connections between grieving and creating. Participants will be invited to share/describe a work (text, piece of art, etc.) that embodies this connection for them.

Third Session
This session will allow participants to creatively express their own reckoning with death, grief and loss as they have experienced it personally and flowing from the previous two sessions, in which the Ignatian imagination and its grace-filled practices will have been incorporated. Participants will be asked to create and share something for this final gathering that affirms their respective journeys and welcomes their healing.

Gordon Creamer, creator of the Mission Bridge, currently serves as program director at Well for the Journey, a spiritual wellness center in Lutherville, Maryland. As a contemplative and creative builder, he has held leadership roles in health care programming and operations since 2001 at various assisted living, skilled nursing and hospice communities. He earned a master’s in spiritual and pastoral care from Loyola University Maryland and a master’s in theology from the Ecumenical Institute of St. Mary’s Seminary & University. Currently, he is a candidate for the doctor of ministry program at the Ecumenical Institute.

Gordon has facilitated a diverse array of retreats and workshops that focus on creating opportunities for participants to explore and enhance their spirituality and well-being through various media and formats. He also participates as a peer group leader in the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation’s Transforming Community Program. His passions include uplifting the journey of adults, individuals with memory impairment and members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as fostering support groups and programs for caregivers and those who are grieving losses. Trained as a spiritual director/companion, end-of-life doula and Reiki practitioner, Gordon welcomes all in discovering the spiritual life as a means of healing, expanding and flourishing.